Thanks for commenting, Susan! I wasn't keeping a close eye on the group and
missed Alex's original announcement. Just signed up to help with
categorizing!
Really looking forward to the evolution of this group, Alex.
GREAT work!!
Jess
On Wednesday, March 13, 2019 at 4:32:54 PM UTC-4, Susan Dorsch wrote:
>
> Hi again!
>
> Working mom alert here – spending an hour organizing old conversations
> into new categories was absolutely perfect for my brain power today. It's
> simple, easy work that not only made me feel like I was actually doing
> something, but it brought me back into some awesome conversations from the
> Google Group (soon-to-be) of Yore.
>
> *Looking for a quick and easy way to be of service to the global coworking
> community? Look no further.* Alex has made it easy as pie to chip in. DO
> IT.
>
> <3
> S
>
> PS - hi again, everyone. I've missed y'all and I also don't know so many
> of you. I look forward to being a bit more reconnected as we shift over to
> the new platform!
> __
> Office Nomads
> officenomads.com
>
>
>
> On Mon, Mar 11, 2019 at 11:50 AM Susan Dorsch > wrote:
>
>> Huge, HUGE thanks for getting this ball rolling, Alex. It's so exciting!
>> Just signed myself up to help out. I hope everyone else does too!
>>
>> S
>>
>> __
>> Office Nomads
>> officenomads.com
>>
>>
>> On Sat, Mar 9, 2019 at 4:09 PM Alex Hillman > > wrote:
>>
>>> Quick update - I would like to specifically invite/encourage more women
>>> and POC to get involved in this initiative from the start!
>>>
>>> If you're on the fence about signing up, I promise the commitment is
>>> very low and the potential for impact is very high. :) Have questions or
>>> concerns? Drop me a note offline: al...@indyhall.org
>>>
>>> -Alex
>>>
>>> On Saturday, March 9, 2019 at 11:57:13 AM UTC-5, Alex Hillman wrote:
Hello friends!
*This is a long post for a Saturday, but it's one I'm very excited to
share with you and I hope you'll take the time to read completely. *
The Coworking Google Group is a very special place for many people,
myself included. By the numbers alone, it's one of the largest communities
in the world for aspiring and current coworking operators, staff,
researchers, and more with 8000+ registered users. This group's archives
contain over 6000 threads (and tens of thousands of comments) that contain
over 13 years of coworking knowledge, history, friendships, stories, and
successes.
When you think about the reach and power of this community, it's
awe-inspiring.
Soon, Google is making some changes to the the platform that powers
this group. This particular round of changes aren't a problem for
usbut
it does make me cautious about trusting Google to host our community in
the
long term. If they can make sweeping changes - or worse, shut down this
*free* product - our community is at risk. And that's saying nothing
of the shortcomings of the tool itself.
*So I've been doing a lot of research and testing.* The biggest
challenge is that I don't just want to move to another "new" community
platform - I wanted to move ALL of the historical content to something
that
is measurably better, and that we can control (so we don't have to worry
about a company changing their minds or direction with little warning). I
also want to keep the platform email-based, which allows for much wider
and
easier participation.
And maybe, just maybe, one that doesn't make money by harvesting all of
our data? ;)
Tall order, I know.
*Well, I did it.* I found an option that fits the bill, and makes it
possible to IMPROVE the "google group" resource in several measurable
ways,
and amazingly we can do this without losing any functionality we're used
to. It's an open source tool called Discourse.
And while it *looks* like a forum on the website, but I was able to
adjust the settings to enable the email-based experience just like the
Google Group.
*Best of all - I was able to migrate the ENTIRE historical archive of
discussions and comments to the new platform. 100% preserved (and with
much
better tools to search the archive!)*
[image: Global Coworking Forum 2019-03-09 11-17-31.png]
Among it's unique strengths, Discourse includes the ability to set up
categories and subcategories, keeping our conversations more organized and
making it easier for new people to find the valuable threads they need.
You
can even set your email preferences for SPECIFIC categories, muting the
topics you care less about and subscribing to topics you're most
interested
in. Smart weekly digests can help you know what's going on without having
to read every message.
